There is a fascinating idea put forward by the authors of ‘The Alliance’ called the Tour of Duty. They make the case for a new type of employer-employee relationship that addresses the fact that today’s employee is likely to move jobs every few years. The Tour of Duty (like in the military) is a purpose based (often time bound) employment contract. Instead of hiring someone for a lifetime of employment, the authors propose organisations hire new employees for 2 to 4 year projects with specific deliverables. At the end of the specified employment term, the employer and […]

There are two types of coaching conversations. The first and most common is the performance conversation. Here, managers coach employees to solve a problem. The conversation is about the task. The second type is the development conversation. Here, managers turn from the issue to the person. The conversation is about the employee’s development.

Performance conversations are more popular because they’re more urgent. A problem needs to be solved now! Development conversation are more important but happen less often. There’s always an urgent problem that needs attention!

This bring us back to the classic important vs. urgent conundrum. How do we prioritise […]

Deloitte recently reported that up to 88% of employees globally are not passionate at work. Look around and you’ll see this to be true.

Our work at Talenpac is inspired by a TEDx talk I gave four years ago. I spoke about how we could find passion through purpose. Following the TEDx talk I began to realise that finding passionate work was a problem many of my colleagues and peers had as well. I started Talenpac to address this growing Passion Gap.

We’re keen to facilitate a conversation around what drives passion at work. Today, we publish our first paper on the topic […]

I had the opportunity to study adaptive leadership during my fellowship year with Acumen and the concept of ROAD stuck with me.

ROAD, an acronym for the Range of Acceptable Disequilibrium is based on the premise that leadership is essentially the activity of creating change. It suggests that we all have a range of acceptable disequilibrium. Disequilibrium here represents the imbalance we experience when we challenge the belief systems that govern our status quo. It’s the amount of change we’re willing to put up with.

By it’s very nature, the process of change attempts to challenge our current understanding or worldview. There […]

Organisations typically set ambitious financial goals and then try to motivate their employees to reach them. For instance, a large utilities company may decide to double their market cap in 5 years. That’s an ambitious goal but honestly, why would employees care?

Sure, there’s an opportunity for career progression but they’d get the same opportunity by moving jobs. Maybe there’s a potential bonus? Most of us don’t care enough for maybes.

What we know is that we’re motivated by meaningful work. (Dan Ariely talks about this and so does Dan Pink). Each of us wants to do work that gives us purpose.

We have a worldview about technology, millennials, terrorism, banks, sexuality and almost everything else. Your employees have a worldview too.

They have a worldview about their job, their career and their manager. They may view their job as a means to an end, their career as a forced choice and their manager as someone to be feared. Or they could view their job as their passion, their career as their journey and their manager as their coach.

Their worldview ultimately determines their thoughts, words and actions at work.

Your boss calls you in for a meeting and gives you a new assignment. Your client signs off on your quotation and it’s time to deliver. Your employee asks you to help him with something he’s struggling with.

Most of us react to these situations by asking ourselves, “How can I do as little as possible as quickly as possible?”

It’s understandable given how stretched we feel at work. We already have a full plate, we can’t imagine how we’ll fit anymore on it. Doing as little as possible as quickly as possible may very well get the job done but […]

How can I do as little as possible as quickly as possible? Navin Muruga
2017-07-25T09:54:51+00:00